Last year, he assembled a database of 3,146 geoscientists across the planet to get their views on global warming. The results: 90 percent believe it exists, with 80 percent sure that earthlings are causing most of it.

His survey was published last month in Eos, a publication of the American Geophysical Union.

"There is no debate," he said. "There are a few people on the fringes who make a living out of being contrarian, but you can't ignore the long-term trends.

You think reality is determined by how people vote? The only known reality here is that 80% believe a certain way.

The worst thing that guy said is "there is no debate." I've seen that over and over again. It's like they want to declare the debate over when it's not. A 5 against 1, a 10 against 1, 100 against one, are even 1000 against one debate is still a debate.

And we have stuff like that Oreskes thing we discussed in another thread, where she tried to create the impression that there were no "contrary" papers published in peer reviewed journals when that just objectively isn't true.

To say that 80% of persons in a certain range of fields believe a certain way means "there is no debate" is really lame.

You think reality is determined by how people vote? The only known reality here is that 80% believe a certain way.

The worst thing that guy said is "there is no debate." I've seen that over and over again. It's like they want to declare the debate over when it's not. A 5 against 1, a 10 against 1, 100 against one, are even 1000 against one debate is still a debate.

And we have stuff like that Oreskes thing we discussed in another thread, where she tried to create the impression that there were no "contrary" papers published in peer reviewed journals when that just objectively isn't true.

To say that 80% of persons in a certain range of fields believe a certain way means "there is no debate" is really lame.

CO2 is one factor in what the temperature of the planet's atmosphere is. There are many other factors. When I say there is debate I'm talking about debate with respect to the idea that it's been established that the Earth's temperature is being significantly impacted by humankind and that if something dramatic isn't done disaster will ensue.

"The main point of this paper is simply to illustrate why serious and persistent doubts remain concerning the danger of anthropogenic global warming despite the frequent claims that 'the science is settled.'"

In that paper Lindzen says that the "bound" one might place on the proportion of warming attributable to human activity is about one third. However, I do not read him as saying that to mean that any warming at all can be definitely attributed to human activity. I say that because of this statement:

"Contrary to the iconic statement of the latest IPCC Summary for
Policymakers, this is only on the order of a third of the observed trend at the surface, and suggests a warming of about 0.4° over a century. It should be added that this is a bound more than an estimate. Greenhouse warming must appear in the neighborhood of 300 hPa, but warming at 300 hPa does not have to be greenhouse warming."

I realize Lindzen is frequently attacked. His high profile image as one of the skeptics the global warmists have one of the more difficult times dealing with due to his indisputable credentials as a "climate scientist" is why I usually do searches on his name to find "contrarian" papers.* But the fact is that there continues to be debate.

I've got to add, again, that the IPCC has itself conceded that unequivocal attribution of any aspect of climate change is not possible.

*I don't personally accept the premise that legitimate debate on the issue can only involve "climate scientists," nor do I accept the premise that legitimate debate can only be expressed in peer reviewed journals. However, I try to use climate scientists and statements made in papers published in peer reviewed journals when possible in order to eliminate those premises as issues.

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